War Diary (24 July 1944): Screening Clyde section of convoy CK-3 bound from Charleston, S.C., to United Kingdom ports in company with USS STERN (DE-187) C.T.G. 27.5 in “STERN”. At 0300, parted company with convoy and proceeded to Belfast with STERN, on receipt of orders from C.T.G. 27.5.0750–Arrived Belfast Lough, fueled and provisions taken, and reported necessary repairs to C.T.G. 27.5. Liberty granted to one half ship’s company at 1830.
The Mason left her convoy in Plymouth and headed first for Bangor harbor in Northern Ireland and then to Belfast. The log says they steamed up the River Foyle, but the Foyle flows into Derry on the west coast, at least one hundred miles from Belfast. Belfast Loch led them into the harbor and their first liberty. While the Republic of Ireland was technically neutral during World War II, the north of Ireland, as part of the United Kingdom, had been at war since 1939. Belfast had suffered through a blitz in April 1941, and the evidence of bombs was everywhere. For the people of Northern Ireland the arrival of the Yanks was a joyful deliverance. For many of the GIs Ireland was a home away from home. Many had roots in counties north and south. The families of twelve American presidents emigrated from northern counties. There were many stories of family reunions, albeit families that had been separated by a hundred years. More than three hundred thousand U.S. servicemen and women passed through the north from 1942 to 1945, and they made an enormous impact on this small place whose population was under one million. As one woman said, “It was a wonderful, exciting time.” But when the crew of the Mason stood on deck taking third-class liberty, that is, watching the shore through field glasses, they felt some trepidation.
DuFau: It was a question in our minds. What were we going to meet? How would the people greet us? Because here we were, so many black guys. There were 160 of us on our ship. Whenever we went ashore, the captain always told us, “Don’t go alone. Stay together, no matter what.” So, that was in our minds. But then these greetings started coming without any effort on our part. That was like another world to us because never in my life until that day had I been treated like that. Never in my life had we received such greetings from people, perfect strangers. It’s hard to find words to describe the Belfast experience, what we felt to be received the way we were by the people. We actually had a lady apologize for the weather conditions. She was wishing it was a sunshiny day, because it was so beautiful there, and she wanted us to see it so beautiful. She was sorry it was overcast.
That was such a great time. We went into the parks, and everybody greeted us so well. It was just a wonderful, wonderful experience. We had to travel from our own home country, our own home town, over all this water, to get to a place where people treated us like human beings.
Peters: Ireland was a great place to go. It wasn’t our first foreign port, because we had had our first shakedown in Bermuda. But Bermuda was a disappointment to me. Bermuda was predominantly black; it was British, but it was black. Even though it was a foreign country, I experienced the same kind of discrimination that I experienced in this country—I was barred from the USO down there because I was black. I had the same uniform, the same ratings and everything that the white sailors had, yet we were not allowed to frequent that USO.
When we went to Ireland, it was a completely different story. It was like being liberated. It was like being . . . being . . . How can I put it? It was something we had never experienced in this country in terms of, “You’re welcome here and we love you.” That’s literally the way it was. And I really still have a soft spot in my heart for Ireland.
William Bland: All the boys on the Mason were raised right here in this country, in the United States, and we couldn’t go to a movie show or sit down at a counter in Woolworth’s even. We had to go around to the back. And the next thing you know, we were on the ship, and we were scared. Then we went to Ireland, and the Irish people didn’t look on us as our skin color. They looked on us as Americans—as American fighting men.
Grant: One thing I remember is that the girls were beautiful, and they didn’t wear any makeup. No makeup of any kind. Not one. We got invited to this dance, and they were doing these Irish dances. At first I couldn’t get it, I couldn’t get the beat. They’d go this way, and the band would change, and they’d go that way, and I couldn’t follow. Then I listened and I got it. First we’d move right, then left . . . dah, dah, dah. It was beautiful.
Buchanan: There was a girl sitting with us at the dance, and she said to me, “Did you ever hear of the blackit?” And I heard that word black and my ears perked up. Was she sitting here calling me a black something?
“What did you say?” I said. And then I understood.
Radioman 2/c James W. Graham
Signalman 2/c Gordon D. Buchanan
Signalman 2/c Lorenzo A. DuFau
Quartermaster 2/c Charles W. Divers
Radioman 3/c Merwin A. Peters
Motor Machinist’s Mate 3/c Albert Watkins
Radioman 3/c Benjamin G. Garrison
Sonarman 3/c Arnold Gordon
Yeoman 3/c Mel Grant
Radarman 3/c George Polk
Seaman 1/c William H. Bland III
NATIONAL ARCHIVES
President Roosevelt’s valet George C. Fields tightens hammocks in the barracks at Camp Robert Smalls.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES
Enlistees, including Gordon “Skinny” Buchanan, study semaphore at Great Lakes Naval Training Station, Illinois.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES
Entertainers at boot camp featured jazz greats like Dorothy Donegan, seen here performing with the Great Lakes Swing Band.
Some of the Mason’s future crew graduated from Camp Robert Smalls in 1943.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES
“Those guys were professionals,” recalls Winfrey Roberts of the men he boxed at Great Lakes. Bill Leggett (second from left) also served on the Mason.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES
Wife of the inspiring prize-fighter Joe Louis, Marva Louis attended the graduation ceremonies at Camp Robert Smalls.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES
Gunnery mates receive specialized training at one of the navy’s service schools.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES
James Graham (right) trains at the radio school of the Norfolk Naval Training Station.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES
Some of the Mason’s engineering crew studied at the Hampton (Virginia) Institute.
The African American Press reflected on what was regarded as the condescending and unfair nature of naval policy in early 1944.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES
NATIONAL ARCHIVES
The USS Mason was commissioned on 20 March 1944 at the Charlestown shipyard in Boston. Attending the ceremonies were (left to right): Capt. William M. Blackford, Lt. Comdr. Charles C. Pynne, the governor of Massachusetts, Leverett Saltonstall, and the city’s mayor, Maurice J. Tobin, along with crew members.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES
The skipper whose crew would “follow him to hell and back,” Captain Blackford.
Breaking in to life on board ship, Signalman “Snafu” DuFau (left) assists “Chubby” Jones.
William Bland III handles the gun.
“Rip” Johnson was a member of the “black gang” in the Mason’s engine room.
A moment of relaxation: James Graham sits on the smoke generators on the fantail with buddy Radarman 2/c Kieffer.
Mason crewmen—eager to go ashore yet cooperative—pose for a shipmate.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES
By August 1944 the Mason was sporting Battle of the Atlantic camouflage, and her gunner’s mates conducted regular drills on the “pom-pom” gun at sea.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES
Buchanan’s skills at ship identification and his knowledge of German proved to be extremely beneficial to the Mason in her convoy duty.
Even the calmer moments while escorting convoy NY-119 were filled with worry about the unseaworthy yard tugs.
Marine artist Carl Evers’s “The Ordeal of Convoy NY-119” depic
ts the tempest that threatened to swallow up the tugs and their escorts.
The two remarkable crewmen who kept their cool under record-breaking winds and waves to weld the broken Mason en route to safety.
Arnold Gordon (center) clowns around with shipmates while on liberty in Oran, Algeria, in the early months of 1945. Winfrey Roberts, (top right) an electrician’s mate third class, likewise savors the exotic liberty in Oran.
At war’s end, the Mason saw a change of command. Capt. Norman Meyer took over for Captain Blackford (below—seen congratulating the new skipper), who was promoted and transferred to Great Lakes.
Under Captain Meyer’s direction shortly after he came aboard, the Mason rammed the USS Spangenburg (DE 223) while pulling into a North River pier in New York City. (Facing page) The skipper and “Nuckles” Covington assess the damage.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES
Lt. (j.g.) James Hair was recruited both for his ship-handling ability and his black heritage.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES
The U.S. Coast Guard inducted black sailors to patrol American beaches. The crew of the Mason encountered them in New Jersey and the New England states.
MARTIN SHEERIN
Gaining the official recognition the Mason’s crewmen so rightly deserve, Lorenzo DuFau (left) and James Graham (center) celebrate in Annapolis with Admiral Kelso, former chief of naval operations, and Admiral Lynch, former Naval Academy superintendent.
MARTIN SHEERIN
After the “Passing of the Colors,” Brigade Commander Jeff Royal and his parents are congratulated by DuFau and Graham.
Newlyweds James and Barbara Graham join Charles Divers and friend for some liberty at the Mandalay Club in Harlem. (Top) The picture of Gordon Buchanan’s sister, “Sweet Bobbie,” that inspired a fifty-year love match.
CONGRESSMAN RANGEL’S OFFICE
President Clinton honors the men of the Mason with a certificate of appreciation that states, “A grateful nation remembers your sacrifices and contributions during World War II.”
MARTIN SHEERIN
Celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Mason’s commissioning are (clockwise from bottom left): Gordon Buchanan, James Graham, Lorenzo DuFau, Barbara Graham, Ruby Grant, Mary Pat Kelly, Mel Grant, Albert Watkins, Charles Divers, Terry DuFau, Uldine Garrison, Benjamin Garrison, and Mansel Blackford.
“Did you ever hear of the black out?” she repeated.
“Oh, sure,” I said. “We have them in New York all the time.”
Garrison: There was a girl sitting on one side of me and a shipmate was sitting on the other side. I had never learned to dance, but everybody was dancing, so somebody came up and asked this girl to dance. She turned to me and asked, “May I dance with him?” Now that made an impression on me. It showed me how courteous she was, how courteous all of the people were. And I still remember her name—Sadie O’Neill. I’ll never forget it.
The Irish people were very friendly, very cordial, very polite, very courteous. The only problem we had was that we didn’t stay there long enough. We stayed in Belfast about one night. Actually, I think the reason we didn’t stay any longer was because a report got back to the ship about how well we were treated, and some of the white boys couldn’t take that. And so they took us the next day up to Londonderry, and there they dropped anchor. We didn’t go ashore in Londonderry, but we did go ashore in Belfast and had a wonderful time.
DuFau: It was such a shock to be treated so well, especially when we compared it to our own United States Navy.
Garrison: When we talk about Ireland and how well we were received, you might get the idea that it was a novelty for them. But there had been black soldiers there, so our coming was not a novel experience. It was just their normal way of treating people.
Watkins: We enjoyed Ireland very much. There were about four of us, and we bought papers from a little fellow who took us on a tour of Belfast. At the end, we said, “Well, let’s go in so we can have a beer.” So we all waited while the barman pulled this big stopper and handed us these great big pints of beer. We all drank it down together, and we spit it out on the floor! They just cracked up. They said, “We have nothing but warm beer.” Yech!
But I must say, we enjoyed Ireland. People were nice to us; they were very nice. It was something we weren’t quite used to.
Bland: In other places they called us “Tan Yankees,” but in Ireland, they called us “Yanks,” the same thing they called the white sailors. “Yanks.” And it was good.
But the interlude in Ireland was short and the Mason soon took on, appropriately enough, 4,032 pounds of potatoes and 336 pounds of cabbage and prepared to leave Belfast. A local pilot, H. C. Reddy, guided them out into the channel. They increased speed to seventeen knots and set out for New York. But their reception in Ireland had a profound effect on the men. Thomas Young devoted a whole article to the experience. He titled it, “Irish First to Treat Mason Crew as Americans.”
Young: ABOARD THE USS MASON AT SEA—(Delayed)—If the USS Mason ever goes AWOL it’s a fairly safe bet that the search planes will locate it promptly by flying over a certain port in Northern Ireland. For, although the world-traveling men on this destroyer escort with a predominantly Negro crew may see a great many famous and fabulous places, there is one little spot on the Irish Sea that will always hold a top place in their esteem. That city is one to which the Mason paid a brief visit after helping to deliver a convoy of vital war goods to ports in the British Isles. ‘Why, we’re not citizens of New York or Chicago or Atlanta or even of just the United States,’ one of the seamen said reflectively the day after we left Ireland. ‘We’re citizens of the world.’ His was the mood prevailing throughout the ship. ‘Funny,’ he mused, ‘how I had to come all the way across the ocean to a foreign country before I got to enjoy the feeling of being an American.’
The difference was people, just plain people—the way those people treated them during their two-day visit. The hospitality they enjoyed was not the kind shown strangers the first time and then put aside. The Irish had seen the Americans in their midst for years, hundreds of thousands of them—soldiers, sailors, fliers. Many of the soldiers stationed so long in Northern Ireland were colored so the sight of the Mason crew was not new either. One-half of the men were given liberty in town the first night and the other half the second night. They walked the streets, frequented the pubs (where nothing more potent than traditional luke-warm beer was available) and stores.
But after almost six weeks on the sea more than half the men spent their evenings at dance halls where a large group of friendly local girls helped to bring back memories of home, of parties and laughter and sweethearts. When the dance was over many of them escorted the girls home. One of the lads expressed it oddly, but I suspect he had the thought of all the rest in mind when he said, ‘It was the first time in my life that I’ve been treated like a real American.’
We are now racing across the Atlantic again in the endless pursuit of German U-boats, and memories of that last night in Ireland are fresh. Several of the men have asked me how I liked the place. It had been disappointing. It wasn’t in the class with Casablanca, Algiers, London or Liverpool. So I am being as honest as blunt when I sum up my experience there as ‘lousy.’ Invariably, a sly grin comes across their faces as they look at me out of the corner of their eyes. ‘That’s funny,’ they remark, thoroughly suspicious of my veracity; ‘everybody else had a swell time.’ Then they recite some of the interesting and exciting details. By now, I am completely persuaded that the men of the USS Mason enjoyed one of the great moments of their lives during the visit to Ireland. It was the people of that Northern Irish seaport who gave them that moment.
Deck Log (28 July 1944): 00–04 At passage from Belfast, N. Ireland to New York, U.S.A. with C.T.G. 27.5 in compliance with orders to this group. Base course 249 degrees True. Standard speed set at 15 knots. . . . Steaming in line of bearing formation at 3,000 yards distance to the guide and steering various courses and setting various
speeds to keep on proper station. Four main engines in use. Continuous search being made on the SL radar* searching on the four-mile scale for four minutes and on the ten-mile scale for one minute. SA radar** in a standby condition. Sound gear in continuous search from 70 degrees on either beam forward. No. 2 3″/50 1.10/75 and two (2) MM guns in ready condition and antisubmarine armament manned.
War Diary (28 July 1944): Steaming as before. Course 249 degrees, speed 17 knots. At 0820, changed course to 251 degrees. At 1322, all hands at battle stations. STERN appeared to have good sonar contact. All ships maneuvered in box formation five (5) miles from contact point. At 1930, secured from battle stations, and rejoined formation with other ships. All ships proceeded en route as before. At 1700, set clocks to Plus 30 minutes zone time. 2200 to 2305, zigzagging according to plan No. 8 F.T.P. 2304–Formation course changed to 243 degrees True.
These log and war diary excerpts reflect a change in the Mason’s mission. Rather than shepherding a convoy back home, the ship had joined with other DEs to form a hunter/killer group. Their assignment was to pursue and, if possible, to capture a U-boat, or else sink it. The USS Pillsbury, a DE that was part of such a group, had been instrumental in the capture of the U-505 and even now was towing it back to Bermuda. This would be the first naval prize taken at sea by the United States since the War of 1812. If the Mason could capture or sink a U-boat, the men could finally paint the prized emblem on their stack.
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